027 After defeating the army of the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem at the Horns of Hattin, west of the sea of Galilee, in 1187, the Egyptian sultan Saladin marched unopposed into Jerusalem. European Crusaders, mostly from the region of present-day...

036 For ancient Israel, the Temple of Solomon—indeed, the Temple Mount and all Jerusalem—was a symbol as well as a reality, a mythopoeic realization of heaven on earth, Paradise, the Garden of Eden. After King David’s conquest of Jerusalem, the...

034 What happened to tenth-century B.C. Jerusalem? This has been the focus of much recent scholarly attention and has engaged BAR readers as well.a The tenth century was the time of the United Monarchy of Israel, the glory days of King David and...

028 Large-scale illegal construction on the Temple Mount and wholesale dumping of earth in the nearby Kidron Valley resumed this spring. The construction, which is being undertaken by the Waqf, the Muslim religious trust responsible for the Mount...

020 It was one of the most romantic, chaotic, cruel, passionate, bizarre and dramatic episodes in history. In the 12th and 13th centuries A.D., a continual stream of European armies, mustered mostly in present-day France and Germany, marched out...

048 Sepphoris—“the ornament of all Galilee”1—is a city of mosaics. It seems that wherever excavators dig they turn up mosaics. More than 40 mosaic floors, many of them extremely elaborate, have been uncovered to date. BAR readers are already...

060 My friend David Jacobson is to be congratulated on his two-part article on Herod’s Temple Mount. His overall view of the Mount and his incisive use of comparative architecture are commendable. I am grateful to him for reminding readers about...

021 Should you want to visit the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, don’t go to Jerusalem.1 The Jerusalem church will just confuse you. The modern pilgrim, expecting to see the sites of Jesus’ Crucifixion, Entombment and Resurrection, usually comes...

053 David Jacobson’s theory regarding the shape of Herod’s Temple Mount and the placement of the Temple within it draws heavily on Roman architectural practice. The Romans were particularly fond of symmetrical structures, as Jacobson rightly...

039 Life goes on in Jerusalem. And so does excavation. BAR readers will recall the eighth-century B.C. wall built by King Hezekiah of Judah to protect the city from an attack by Sennacherib of Assyria, which was recently discovered by Ronny Reich...

022 Perhaps it would be dangerous to mount an exhibit of idols in Jerusalem. So the Bible Lands Museum calls its latest exhibit “The Human Form Divine.” The show consists of nearly 200 figurines from the private collection of super-collector Elie...

020 Teaching at the synagogue in Nazareth, Jesus amazes his fellow congregants. “Is not this the carpenter’s son? Is not his mother called Mary?” his astonished listeners ask. “And are not his brothers James and Joseph and Simon and Judas? And...

Will archaeologists ever find the city described in the literary sources?

By Florent Heintz

047 Antioch-on-the-Orontes was one of the four great cities of the Greco-Roman-Byzantine world. Although almost unknown today, it once rivaled Alexandria, Rome and Constantinople. Ancient writers described it as a breathtakingly beautiful city...

036 We try to expose our readers to various scholarly viewpoints, even though we do not always agree with them. We have confidence in our readers’ ability to make up their own minds. It is in that spirit that we have tried to present the case of...

044 Bethsaida is the town that disappeared. Soon after playing a prominent role in the Gospels—Bethsaida is mentioned more often in the New Testament than any city except Jerusalem and Capernaum—this fishing village on the Sea of Galilee simply...